Video 8:01
Interview with Ian McKellen and Roger Rees

Actors Sir Ian McKellen and Roger Rees join Stateline to discuss life, career, and their latest roles in 'Waiting for Godot', at His Majesty's Theatre in Perth.

Transcript

ELIZA BLUE, PRESENTER: Sir Ian McKellen is best known for his role as Gandalf the Grey in the multi-million dollar blockbuster series Lord of the Rings.

But the British actor will tonight grace the stage in Perth, alongside his own friend Roger Rees in Samuel Beckett's classic play Waiting for Godot.

The men first crossed paths at Royal Shakespeare Company in the UK 40 years ago, and despite finding international fame through movies, both maintain their love of the stage.

I caught up with Ian McKellen and Roger Rees at His Majesty's Theatre earlier today.

Roger Rees and Ian McKellen, welcome to Stateline.

IAN MCKELLEN: Thank you.

ROGER REES: Thank you.

ELIZA BLUE: Your play has been described as tragic, absurd, existentialist, so how is it relevant in the age of the blockbuster?

ROGER REES: Wow.

IAN MCKELLEN: What somebody said to me the other said they had just seen Avatar and it was in 3D, and that's why they didn't go to the theatre, and had to say "Well, in theatre it's always 3D".

ELIZA BLUE: That's true.

IAN MCKELLEN: Sometimes 4D.

I don't like all these labels, existential, what does that mean?

Absurdist drama, Beckett has attracted a lot of serious critics and they put labels on it. But it's an entertainment.

He called it a tragic comedy. These characters are in a dreadful situation, some Holocaust, as you can see from our set, has happened. And although there's signs of life, a tree, bursting through the stage of an old room theatre, they don't have enough to eat, they don't have anywhere to sleep, and they're clinging on to each other, and depending on each other, and trying to get through life.

ELIZA BLUE: So how do you interact on stage because you've known each obviously for a long time, so what's your chemistry like?

ROGER REES: Well this is the first time we've acted together for 34 years, but we acted lot before that. You know, and it is wonderful to come back together with my friend and be in this play. And because we know each other well, it helps.

And these two characters Didi and Gogo have a deep love for each other and they can contest points with each other and they argue, but it's every sort of facet of a human relationship is in this.

And I am really pleased to sort of examine that with my friend and someone I know so well and deeply.

IAN MCKELLEN: We're all the same sort of people. We love the theatre and entertaining our audiences. And we get on. It's for the audience to judge whether we get on in a way that entertains them or not.

ELIZA BLUE: It's not really the era of the theatre at the moment really is it? It's sort of the big blockbuster. So what attracts you to continue to doing theatre?

ROGER REES: The spontaneity of theatre, spontaneity of theatre. The fact every night we do the whole play, we don't just, we don't just do one scene from a movie and then take a week off or something like that.

Which you do have to do when you're making a movie. Everything happens every night for this audience and it's a very special occasion to come to the theatre.

So I think actually it the age of the theatre, rather than the blockbuster, because this is really special, this is spontaneous, this is humour.

IAN MCKELLEN: I just hope and I hope it's not sentimental, that in the day of the internet, of which I'm a devotee, and emailing and so on.

ROGER REES: Yep, you're good.

IAN MCKELLEN: We may have forgotten how to write letters, because we send quick messages and texts and so on.

But with all this new technology, it's all a substitute for the real thing. The real thing is not talking on the phone or sending a fax or typing a message or sending a photograph of yourself, or Skyping.

ELIZA BLUE: Or tweeting. Don't you tweet?

ROGER REES: No, not consciously.

IAN MCKELLEN: No, the real thing is what we're doing now. The real thing is what we're doing now. And if human beings forget to communicate to each other, if they stay locked up in their own room and have a pretend reality, they're missing out on so much.

I feel so sorry for people going down the street talking on the phone, looking down talking into the phone. Why do they bother coming out? They could have been with this person, and they missed the love of their life who has just walked by.

I met my last boyfriend in the street. Our eyes clicked and we were together for 18 glorious months. If I had been on the phone, if he had, please don't! Don't use this technology away from home.

Away from home is communicating with each other and there is no better place to do it than the theatre.

ROGER REES: And the other thing about the theatre is that we get ready, that's 50 per cent of the experience.

But the audience is the other 50 per cent and then we get together, these two component parts get together and celebrate this play.

We can't do it without you, so you know we're story tellers.

ELIZA BLUE: So tell us, speaking of story tellers what is the best story out of your lives? In the theatre and on movie sets?

ROGER REES: I don't know, I was playing Hamlet. As you've played Hamlet, all us sort of actors have played Hamlet and I came on, this is an entrance, I came on and I said "To be or not to be", and a woman in row G yelled out, "That is the question."

And I said, "Yes, that is the question," And I started again. That's my story.

ELIZA BLUE: Ian can you go one better?

IAN MCKELLEN: Well yeah and it's going to happen tonight because while this program is going out, we will be on stage and you're missing it. So get out of your seat and book a ticket.

ELIZA BLUE: Or you can give me a backstage pass.

Now I have to ask you a question, a local question, that's relevant to you both. A senior Australian football player recently said that Australians in the community in general weren't ready for gay football players. And you're both proudly gay... What would you say to someone who was considering coming out?

IAN MCKELLEN: I would feel extremely sorry for anybody who felt he couldn't come out, because in his or her world he would meet some aggression or disapproval.

You mustn't deny the rights of someone gay or straight to be themselves and part of being themselves is to be honest about themselves. Until you're honest, I discovered, you're not living a full life.

So to say to a gay person you mustn't come out, because other people won't like it. That's very, very unfair.

ELIZA BLUE: Does it surprise you both?

ROGER REES: No, I think, there's a lot of fear, a lot of fear and people say things that they don't really mean or perhaps in this case, don't understand.

IAN MCKELLEN: It's very unfair and very unseemly in this country, in a land of freedom and opportunity and looking to the future.

The captain of the Welsh rugby team and they don't get butcher than that, Gareth Thomas, six foot seven, gay man, just came out and said it's the best thing he ever did.

ELIZA BLUE: Maybe that's a message to Jason Akermanis. Look finally, you spent hours together and obviously you've known each other forever. So, do you have some down time after the final curtain or have you been catching up together in Perth? Sight-seeing?

ROGER REES: Well yeah, we went to that wonderful beach.

IAN MCKELLEN: Cottesloe.

ROGER REES: Where they said you mustn't, I paddled, apparently that was a bad thing to do cause apparently, even if you paddle a shark can get you.

And we went to that wonderful park Kings Park. Yeah beautiful, Perth is just staggeringly beautiful.

IAN MCKELLEN: And my character is called Go Go and so on my birthday it was arranged, we should go to the Go Go's Indian restaurant.

And then we went onto The Court, for an evening with some gay population.

ELIZA BLUE: A dance?

IAN MCKELLEN: No there was no dancing that night, but maybe at the weekend.

ELIZA BLUE: Well great, well good luck for tonight. Thanks for your time.